It’s a competitive job market. A recruiter gets more than 200 job applications in the first hour of the job posting. You certainly want your resume to shine out and qualify for an interview. And for this, you need a professional resume writing service provider.

What is Professional Resume writing?

Remember your first resume. You would have written it sometime during the internship. How many times did you see rejection on that resume? And it was because you had one resume and you were posting that resume on every opportunity that came your way. And that strategy, for many, never changed.

Every employer is looking for somebody of their choice and they describe it clearly in their job description. Remember, they are looking for somebody of their choice. And how do you tell them that you are the one they are looking for? Your resume and your cover letter is your medium to have your first communication with your next prospective employer. And a professionally written resume means talking to your prospective employer in their language.

Is a Professional Resume writer worth?

A professional resume writer takes your story, reads it objectively and sprinkle those objectives in your resume. The writer will listen to your accomplishments, align those accomplishments with possible future job applications.

A professionally written resume is going to convert into more interviews compared to a resume written by a friend. You can follow my Resume Writing post and draft a nice resume for yourself, however a professional is going to glitter up your resume by ensuring that every word written in the resume increases your worth.

Professional resume writers are often industry experts. They are careful in picking employer’s attention by carefully optimizing the keywords in your resume. A keyword optimized resume will be able to pass through the Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). An expert resume writer will ensure that every word written in your resume increases your worth.

However, in today’s competitive job market, it becomes highly important that you are updating your resume for every job that you are applying for. I have covered this in details in my Resume Writing article. Professional resume writing in such conditions could become an expensive affair.

Does professional Resume writer help?

The reason you need a professional to step into your resume writing is that your current resume does not get you interviews that you aim for. Every job application is your opportunity and you might be missing on them.

Your resume is going to talk to the hiring managers on your behalf. What do you want your resume to talk about you?

Your resume must position yourself for success. And professional resume writers are capable of this. A professionally written resume speeds up the entire job hunting process. They make you more marketable and increase callbacks and interviews.

How much does a professional resume writing service cost?

The range gap is huge. You may find professional resume writing services starting from as low as $100 and can go as high as $2000. By the way, I have no clue about the magical things happening with your resume when somebody spends $2000.

The next question is how to find a good professional writing service. There are plenty of options available like:

And that’s not all. You can go to websites like Freelancer, Upwork, and Fiverr and find a resume writer for a cheaper price.

Who would need professional resume writing services?

Freshers: You would perhaps need to customize your resume to the least for different job openings. As a fresher, you will also have very less idea about how to make your resume marketable. A professional resume writing service will be of great help.

Experienced: This is where it gets tricky. Have a professionally written resume makes a lot of difference. But will still need to learn the art of customizing your professionally written resume every time you apply for a different job. The expert resume will give you a 360-degree view of your profile to the hiring manager, but customizing your resume according to the job description is still a must.

Recruiters: Recruiting career is one of the most rewarding careers. An average recruiter submits about 3-4 resumes every day on different job openings. And most often one candidate on many job openings. It is highly important for recruiters and staffing professional to become resume writing experts. Not only it will improve the chances of your submission to interviews, but it will also improve your closure rate and commissions.

Can I learn resume writing skill?

The good news is YES. You can learn resume writing skills. You do not need a specific qualification to learn this skill. And once you know the tips and tricks of writing a professional resume, customizing resume will become a breeze for you.

I have been a staffing professional for a large part of my life. And I know how difficult it is to ask your candidates to modify their resume. But now you can take that power in your hands. In just a few quick minutes, you will be able to customize your candidate’s resume that will convert into an interview.

The brighter side is that once you know the professional resume writing skill, you can become a freelance resume writer and create a passive income for yourself.

Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and National Resume Writers’ Association (NRWA) offers certification in resume writing services too. Certification does help in boosting your profile if you are creating your profile on online freelancing portals.

How much time does it take to learn Resume Writing Skill?

At the surface level, it might appear that resume writing is going to be a daunting task. But once you know the simple tricks of updating a resume, it will fairly simple process. I have simplified the process in my resume writing course to an extent that even if you have never customized a resume that can talk to ATS’s, it will become a breeze for you.

Whether you are fresher, a seasoned professional or a recruiter, once you successfully complete my resume writing course, you will get going from day one. I have assignments and assessments on assignments that help you gain confidence in your professional resume writing skills. The assignments also train you on various aspects of professional resume writing that will stay with you forever in upscaling your career.

How much does a freelance resume writer make?

I wish I had a straight forward answer for the same. After you have gone through my resume writing course, I guarantee that you will be able to customize a resume (provided you have the required resume), in not more than 10 minutes. If you factor in the time you spent on collecting the information, let’s call it an average of 1 hour for a resume.

And assume that you are just starting up and you are charging only $25 for a resume. And that means in your optimum situation you will have the ability to earn $4,400 per month. Consider the optimum situation as 8 hours a day and 22 days in a month. Moreover, you have the complete freedom to improve your earnings by getting faster in your resume writing skills.

Conclusion

No matter you are a fresher, a seasoned professional, a recruiter, or a staffing professional, resume writing is an imperative skill you must hone. You might be hunting for a job or you might be customizing the resume of your candidate, resume writing skills are must to have. A resume is your story in front of the hiring manager. Your resume must present you as a Hero, in your story.

You have been submitting your resume, but not getting interview calls? You are not sure if your resume is even reaching to the recruiters or not? Occasionally it feels if these jobs are even genuine.

I want to tell you that you are not alone who is facing all these challenges. The problem looks bigger when your equally qualified colleagues get the interview call and you do not. And if it is not your qualification and not your skills, then why are the recruiters not calling you?

Most likely it’s time to check your resume writing skills and how it appears to a recruiter.

There are three possible ways in which you submit your resume to a job opening.

Sending your resume on a company’s email id, most likely to the HR/Recruiting department.

Submitting it on the company’s online application tracking system.

Or submit it directly to a recruiter via a reference.

Let us understand what is happening at each level and what can you do to bring it in your favor.

Importance of Resume Writing Skills

So when you send your resume on company’s email id, you start competing with more than 200 resumes that get stock up in company’s email id within the first few minutes of the company posting the job.

Recruiters have been boasting about spending 10-15 minutes on every resume that they get. They read a full resume to understand the candidature and then make their decision.

However, the truth is entirely different. I have spent more than 15 years working with recruiters and I know they don’t spend that time. They don’t have that much of time. Think of it, 200 resumes and 10 minutes on each resume means 2000 minutes, that’s more than 33 hours.

Research shows that most recruiters spend only 6 seconds to skim a resume and make a decision on your job application. Only a well-crafted resume attracts recruiter’s eyeball.

Ok, now let’s look at the other possibility that you submitted your resume on the company’s online application tracking system. Most companies use applicant tracking system (ATS) to qualify the resume.

The application tracking system has its own artificial intelligence to qualify the resume.

The artificial intelligence works on the keywords depending on the job descriptions. It reads the resume and matches the keywords and phrases and qualifies the resume. And if your resume did not have the right keywords, chances are that the resume does not even hit the recruiter’s desk.

Lastly, if you have submitted your resume through a reference, the resume is sure to reach the recruiter. But again, if the resume was not customized to the job position, it will fail to incline the recruiter in your favor.

In today’s digital world of neck-to-neck competition, your resume is the first impression in front of the recruiters. You want this impression to be the best impression.

Like to know how you should write your resume that leads to an interview? Continue reading.

What is a Resume?

Resume writing is storytelling. A resume is a one or two-page document that presents your abilities and qualities to the recruiters. Your resume is what makes recruiter feel if they should invest their time in interviewing you.

But, resume writing is not writing your qualifications and skills on a piece of paper. It is an art to demonstrate that you are the candidate, they have been hunting for. A well-written resume defines your market value. Make sure your resume reflects what recruiters are looking for.

Blocks of Resume Writing

Every resume carries some standard blocks. There is no ideal format in which you should arrange them. And for every job and every company, these blocks could differ.

Find out what is important for the job and put emphasis on the same. De-emphasize the less important blocks or try to drop them if they are not relevant.

Let us look at some of the important blocks of a resume.

Heading of the Resume

Include your name, address, email id, phone number and the best time to contact. Many disagree about the need for an address in the resume. Address helps recruiter understand your likeliness to accept the job if selected. Help them qualify you by adding an address in your resume.

Including LinkedIn profile adds creditability of your resume in front of the recruiters. Make sure you have added a link your LinkedIn ID.

Career Objectives

Employers and professionals have different views on adding this block in the resume.

Career objectives help recruiter understand your immediate career aspirations. It helps the recruiter find if your career goals align with the job they are currently recruiting. You should showcase your most important skills and how they are inline to the job you have applied for.

Make sure that your career objectives convey specific objectives. Targeting on many things together may confuse the recruiter. Your career objectives must align with the company goals.

Education and Qualification

List down the degrees you have earned with the highest degree on top with dates and your scores that is your GPA. If you have taken up courses during your college vacation, it’s time to mention them here. Add extra-curricular activities that show certain skills important to the job.

Take the example of “communication skills”. Add some extra-curricular activity that proves you have good communication skills.

For example, anchored college debates and award ceremonies for 3 consecutive years.

If there is an important skill required for the job and you don’t have it, take up a course around that. Write that in your resume stating that you have enrolled in “XYZ course” to sharpen your skills on “ABC Skill”. This will help recruiters build trust on your claims you made in your career objectives.

Recognitions

This block of resume writing will vary from person to person. Any reward and recognition you earned during in your college or at work showcase them here. Find possibilities of aligning them with the skills required in performing the job.

Work Experience

Fresher must include their summer internships. Tell how your internship helped you build a skill that benefits the company.

Experienced people must include their works summary. Backup each work experience with dates, role, and responsibilities. Be crisp in writing your responsibilities. Your responsibilities should increase your desirability to the recruiters.

Add experiences that show your ability to learn new things for example:

Voluntary Services

Summer Jobs

Extra-Curricular Activities

Part-time work

Non-Paid Assignments

Skills and Qualities

This is where you list your top 6 skills. Remember these skills should be in sync to the requirements in the job you are applying for.

List down your skills and their proficiency level in

Computer literacy

Languages knew

Analytical skills

Management skills

Leadership abilities

Research qualities

Creative side

Soft skills

Feel free to include what is relevant to the job and drop those are not important while listing your skills.

These are the most important blocks of your resume writing. Many like to include “References’ and “Activities and Interests” block too. I will avoid increasing the length of the resume by adding redundant information.

Few people like to include their photograph while writing a resume. The resume needs to qualify based on your skills and not on how you look. I will avoid adding a photograph in the resume.

Tips to make your Resume Writing Impressive

Sound Professional

Avoid using an email address that looks unprofessional. Instead of “rajtheboss@gmail.com”, it is advisable to use an email address like “raj.mehta@gmail.com”. Let recruiter understand that you are serious about the job opportunity.

Easy to Locate Contact Information

This makes everyone’s job easier. It is best to include the contact information on the top of your resume. Ensure it is up-to-date with an email id that you check on a daily basis. Best is to configure your email id in your smartphone.

Use Action Words

Action words are words that helps recruiter visualize you performing certain tasks. More they see you doing important things in your past work experiences, more they will believe you doing it in their organization.

Avoid the usage of would, could, or might. Instead of writing “I would like to work in a challenging environment” write “I enjoyed working in the challenging environment”.

Pick the Keywords

Keywords are most important when you are applying online. Most large scale organizations use ATS systems to screen job applications. You resume if worked on keywords ensures that AI of ATS system reads your resume in the way you want it to read.

Follow a Format

There are different resume formats like – Chronological, Functional, Hybrid. Choose the resume format that best suits the information you want to put up.

Unless it is the demand of the profile to show your creativity, which is unlikely, do not do it. Fancy fonts might not open in the recruiter’s computer and your resume will even fail to make its point. Keep it simple. Use fonts like Arial, Helvetica or Verdana with a font size of 10-11 is best.

Avoid using many colors and fonts in your resume.

Customize your resume

Every job is different and every company has a different vision. You must customize your resume every time you apply for a job. Check the company’s website and check their mission. Read the job descriptions and find what matters most to them.

Customize your resume keeping both things in mind. The better you understand the goals of the company, the better your resume writing will be.

Increase Readability

Balance the white space and text. A recruiter only spends about 6 seconds to decide if the resume is worth spending further time. Highlight what you want the recruiter to see in those 6 seconds. Make it easier for the recruiter to make a decision in your favor.

Avoid any type of technical jargon. Do not try to impress the recruiter with your technical know-how. Keep it simple for them to read and understand your profile instead of getting confused.

Use small sentences instead of long and difficult sentences. You are writing your resume, not your English literature exam.

No Grammatical Mistakes

If you are not attentive while writing your resume, why would recruiter feel that you will be attentive in your job? This sounds so simple, but more than 50% of the resumes are poorly written when it comes to grammar and typos.

Mention what is necessary

There is no point writing information that has no relevance to the job. No one is interested in reading a story that is not meant for them. Write only what is important to inform the recruiter about your suitability to the job. Avoid anything that sketches your political inclination or religious beliefs.

Be true

Write something that you can talk and discuss upon during an interview. There is no fun in blabbering about yourself in the resume and falling flat during the interview. What you write better be true, even if investigated.

Mention Dates

Numbers and dates add credibility to your resume. Backup the information as much as possible with numbers and dates. For example instead of writing “met yearly sales target” you may think of writing “Achieved the sales target of 3M (100%) for the year 2018”.

Conclusions on Resume Writing

There are plenty of professional resume writing services available on professional sites. But it could be really expensive to get your resume written every time you apply for a new job.

The need of the hour is to learn this art of resume writing and customize your resume every time you apply for a job. Convert every job application into an interview now.

A recruiter always has a job pending to be filled and a bunch of resumes to be screened. Most of the recruiters, being reactive recruiters, start their recruitment process only after they get a requirement. Successful recruiters follow a proactive approach and constantly build effective talent pools.

What does talent pool mean?

A Talent Pool is a database of all your past, present and potential future employees. It is a resource center where you can quickly find pre-qualified candidates. You keep feeding this database with every resume that you get in the form job postings, sourcing, social media or referral.

Building a strong talent pool is the quickest way to fill your job openings with the least amount of cost. However, building a high-quality talent pool is a daunting task for many. 76% of recruiting managers find difficult to attract top talent for their jobs.

Importance of Talent Pool

An active talent pool is an asset to any organization. This reduces the time to hire, reduces the cost to hire, and improves the quality of hire.

The job market is changing fast and the demand for talent is more than ever. The need for fresh and active talent pool database is inevitable. Candidate preferences, experiences, qualifications, and locations keep changing. The more you keep your talent pool fresh, the better it serves the purpose.

According to McKinsey Global Institute, Europe and North America will need 16M more than available worker by 2020. High demand and less supply make it important for recruiters to start proactive recruiting. You might like to check the top jobs by 2020 and start creating a talent pool now.

Ways to build Talent Pool

There are two broad ways to build talent pools

Outbound
Candidates sourced using sourcing tools is a prime source of building a talent pool. Professional networking tools like LinkedIn and Ladders also provide ways to source candidates.

Inbound
Promote your job on job boards, social media, and your own company website/blog. Interested candidates will apply to those job openings. Keep adding them to your talent pool database.

Candidates sourced using sourcing tools, outbound method, is one of the prime sources of building a talent pool. Some social recruiting tools like LinkedIn, Ladders etc. also provide ways and methods to source candidates that make way into your talent pool database.

However, when you promote your job on various channels including job postings, social media, and your own company website/blog, interested candidates apply on those job openings. This is an inbound method of creating your talent pool database.

As a strategy, keep your even green job published all the times. Incoming resumes of interested candidates will keep filling your talent pool database. Don’t worry if you do not have a real-time job description, use a dummy job description to collect leads.

Referrals are another interesting and important way of building your talent pool. Referrals are considered to be one of the best-recruiting strategies. The quality of the candidate and its attribute of long tenure simplifies the hiring.

Recruiters need to get more proactive on forums and meet-ups. That’s another channel that can generate a lot of referrals for you. If you are hiring for startups proactive recruiting is the only way to hire.

How to keep your talent pool updated?

As much as it is important to build the talent pool, it is important to keep your database afresh. The candidate profile is dynamic, keeping a tap on each candidate seems impossible. But, if you plan from the beginning, it’s easier than what it appears to be.

Segmentation of Candidates

Segmentation is like making different buckets of different skills. Keep the relevant candidates in respective buckets. Sure, a single candidate may fit into many buckets, so let it be.

Segmentation helps to send relevant information to the candidates. Candidates would prefer to read emails of their interest and stay connected with you. Broadcasting every information to everyone will put them off. They are most likely to stop reading your content, unsubscribe or mark your spam. You do not want either to happen. Give them a personalized experience.

Minimum interruption but the maximum value

When a candidate joins your talent pool, they should know the type of content they like to get from you. Some may only want you to send relevant jobs as and when you have for them. Others may like to read your newsletter. Some may like to read knowledgeable content if you produce so.

Keep the expectation right when they are joining the list, will help build their trust on you. Tell them that you won’t be selling their data to any third party. Explain what kind of emails they can expect from you and what would be the frequency. Give them the right to unsubscribe from your list, if they like to.

Keep communicating

Don’t keep sending emails about the job opening that you have. Your emails should have something for them to read and engage. If you slip in the current job openings, your purpose is done.

Put yourself in their shoes. If you are recently joined a job, or you are happy with your current organization, further job email is no longer of interest. Isn’t it?

Use Social Media

Social media is a great tool to keep your talent pool engaged. It gives them their right to expression. Create communities, and forums and invite people in your talent pool to join those forums.

Engaging people in such forums is easy. Start thread by asking a question of their interest and you will see a lot of engagement happening. These forums are also a great tool to collect references. Ask the group/forum members to invite more people.

Conclusion

Building a strong, fresh, and active talent pool is important for recruiters and organizations. Hiring talent is getting tougher than ever. Hence it is important to keep the right kind of talent engaged with yourself, all the time.

The next big thing every recruiter should know is Resume Writing. Learn it to become better in recruiting.